#16: On diversity and inclusion
Tech and Non-profits: we have work to do
Pass It On is a bi-weekly newsletter bringing the tech and non-profit sectors closer together through knowledge sharing, written and edited by Lauren Crichton.
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The previous Pass It On Q&A ended with a reminder about inclusive language. Instead of using able-bodied to refer to someone who does not identify as having a disability, we should use non-disabled or is not living with a disability.
I had no idea that able-bodied was a phrase that could offend people living with a disability. Nor had I ever reflected on how it implies that typical abilities are inherently superior. My father, who’s the CEO of a sight loss charity, pointed out the term when reading my newsletter draft, which then led me to Google. Interestingly, able-bodied returned 6.15 million hits vs. just 1.29 million for non-disabled.
I'll admit I was disappointed in myself for not knowing the correct term. I have been working on using more inclusive language for some time; how could I miss this? But then I reflected on the type of linguistic habits I've been trying to unlearn, and most of them relate to gender. For example, swapping guys for folks and he/she for singular they unless otherwise specified. Why have I become so conscious of these gender-related terms yet remained so unaware of the terms related to other forms of diversity?
In my experience, workplace conversations about diversity and inclusion often begin and end with gender. Race and ethnicity, too, perhaps, since the rise of Black Lives Matter. But I've heard relatively little about hiring tech teams and designing digital products and services with, say, neurodiversity or disability in mind. According to the World Economic Forum, this isn't surprising: despite 90% of companies claiming to prioritise diversity, only 4% consider disability in their initiatives.
Why does accessibility tend to be an afterthought or a nice to have in Tech? Probably because we assume certain disabilities only affect small percentages of the population and therefore deprioritise them. But as Microsoft points out, designing for people living with permanent disabilities results in solutions that benefit people universally. Consider the following example:
Imagine a US food delivery startup receives a request to make its app accessible to people living with one arm. A quick google tells them that around 2 million people in the US have had an amputation or were born with a limb difference, 0.6% of the total population. Based on that low number, the team calls the request an edge case and moves it to the bottom of their to-do list. In doing so, they've equally ignored all the time-poor parents desperately trying to order takeaway with a screaming baby on their arm. And all the hungry commuters struggling to pick dinner while holding a handrail on the bus. These scenarios are hardly edge cases; they're ubiquitous and probably lucrative as a result. Think how many more meals this startup could have sold if they'd had these situations in mind from the outset.
It shouldn't take an "atypical" request to remind us that everyone deserves to belong. We need more people representing a broader range of human experiences working in our (tech and non-profit) organisations. And we urgently need more diverse leadership:
In the UK, 70% of charity CEOs are men, of whom 93% are white; 79% of startup founders are also men, of whom 84% are white. In the US, around 75% of non-profit boards don't have anyone with a disability on them. I couldn't find equivalent numbers for startup boards.
As I learned from Pass It On's first Q&A guest Lauren Currie, we cannot be what we cannot see. And by extension, we cannot design solutions for problems with which we cannot empathise. This newsletter has barely scratched the surface of what it means to be inclusive, and certainly falls short on solutions. But think how powerful it would be if this Pass It On community started exploring some together. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Who’s ready to kick start the conversation?
P.S. It's Pride Month! 🏳️⚧️ 🏳️🌈
If you're looking to build your inclusive language muscle, I highly recommend checking out:
LGBTQ+ inclusive language tips from writer and Pass It On reader Ettie Bailey-King
’The Incomplete Guide to Inclusive Language’ from transparent tech startup Buffer, who have open-sourced their diversity and inclusion data
And to build your empathy muscle, try these free prompts.
Thanks for reading,
Lauren